A5. System Conditions & A6. Management Thinking

So you know your purpose, you understand demand, you have measures of your capability and know how your work currently flows…let’s make some improvements.

Not so fast! “Treating improvement as merely process improvements is folly. If the system conditions that caused the waste are not removed, any improvements will be marginal and unsustainable…To remove waste, you need to understand its causes.”(John Seddon)

There are reasons as to why the system is as it is…and, if you don’t understand these, then any intended changes are likely to fail. Such reasons include organisational structures, business policies, procedures, methods of measurement, reliance on technology systems….

Further, once you understand these system conditions, you must go one step further and ask ‘why is it like this?’ Now, you are at the true root cause – management thinking. The whole system exists as it does because of the way managers (currently) think about the design and management of ‘work’.

The waste of untapped human potential: It is the role of management to provide an environment in which all of our potentials can flourish and become best utilised…it is not appropriate to make this the burden of each individual.

‘Roll out’ vs. ‘roll in’: There’s a fundamental, and massively important, difference between attempting to ‘roll out’ change and enabling change to roll in through the motivations of the people performing the work. ‘Roll out’ applies for command-and-control. ‘Roll in’ fits with systems thinking.

Kahneman’s ‘investment advice’ example: ‘performance’ is partly down to skill but mostly down to luck….but knowing this does not mean that much will necessarily change. We need to know the causes of why we think and act as we do if we are to be successful in changing for the better.